Effective January 1, 2022, California law AB 468 requires that you have a patient-provider relationship with your doctor for at least 30 days prior to receiving documentation. This will result in having two consultations before qualifying.

You will not be charged for the second consultation.

Any house pet can be an ESA—cats, dogs, ferrets, lizards, and more. That means that if you already have a pet, you can probably get it certified as an ESA.

Under Fair Housing rules, an ESA can be a dog, cat, small bird, rabbit, hamster, gerbil, other rodents, fish, turtle, or other small, domesticated animal that is traditionally kept in the home for pleasure rather than for commercial purposes.

Anyone with a mental or emotional disability may qualify for an emotional support animal. Disability, in this instance, refers to anything that makes your life harder on average. This could include:



- Anxiety


- Depression


- PTSD


- Stress


- Personality Disorders


- Schizophrenia


- Phobias



And a host of other mental or emotional challenges you might encounter on a day to day basis.

If you want to be sure that you qualify, CLICK HERE and take our FREE 3-minute online questionnaire to find out!

A PSD is a canine companion that has been trained to perform at least one specific task to aid in the daily life of someone living with a mental or emotional health disorder.

A PSD has broad public access rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). PSDs are allowed to board the cabin of planes and airlines are not allowed to charge any additional fees for bringing your psychiatric service dog. PSDs are also permitted in ALL public places.

Some examples of how PSD can help:

-Interrupting episodes such as crying, dissociation, flashbacks, and nightmares

-Interrupting harmful actions, such as scratching, picking, and self-harm

-Providing pressure and tactile stimulation to calm

-Grounding and orienting the handler during panic attacks

-Lying on the handler during psychotic episodes

-Applying gentle pressure with teeth or nuzzling to disrupt psychiatric episodes

-Interrupting repetitive behaviors

-Helping the handler maintain a stable routine, like reminding to take medications

-Preventing the handler from oversleeping

-Provide physical attention and affection, helping ease anxiety and sadness.

-Alleviate claustrophobia and agoraphobia by acting as a buffer between handler and other humans.

-Help maintain balance and prevent falls.

-Recognize when handler need to be removed from an environment due to overstimulation.

In California and New York, AirBNB hosts cannot refuse a reservation, decline the presence of your pet, or charge additional pet fees.

Unfortunately, an ESA letter does not protect air travel with your animal.

To be an official PSD, your dog must be trained to perform specific tasks to aid your mental health disorder, but that doesn't mean you need professional training or certification. As long as the animal is necessary to your mental health and can intervene in specific situations, your PSD is protected. No other document is technically required.

A PSD can be trained by anyone, including yourself, according to the Department of Transportation (DOT) and ADA. The DOT Transport Form asks who was responsible for training your service dog and passengers are allowed to list themselves as the trainer.

Psychiatric service dogs need to meet two (2) different standards of training to be classified as service animals.

1) TRAINED TO ASSIST WITH A MENTAL HEALTH DISABILITY (explained above)

2) BEHAVE WELL IN PUBLIC

All service dogs need to behave well in public. The standard is pretty subjective but, generally, service dogs must not show signs of stress, be aggressive in any way, climb on other people, or chase other animals.

For travel, the Department of Transportation (DOT) now requires passengers with service dogs to fill out and sign a form that certifies that your service dog is trained, and will behave appropriately. Service dogs must be able to keep their composure at the airport, for the duration of a flight, and in other public settings.

They must be able to control their bodily functions while in the gate area and for the entire flight.

If a dog can't meet those standards, or it its behavior shows that it hasn't been properly trained, the airline can refuse to permit it in the flight cabin and can treat the service dog as a pet by charging a pet fee and requiring your dog to be transported in a pet carrier, possibly in the cargo hold.

The Fair Housing Act requires housing providers such as landlords or management companies to allow the possession of animals that work, provide assistance for, or perform tasks that benefit individuals with qualified medical disabilities – or that provide emotional support to individuals to reduce a symptom or effect of a disability.

The Fair Housing Act also requires individuals, who wish to possess a service or support animal, to follow specific criteria relevant to the type of support needed.

For an emotional support animal, the individual has to speak with a licensed mental health professional in the state they reside and receive a prescription of an ESA Letter in order to qualify.

An annual consultation with a clinician to discuss your needs for an ESA letter is advised in order to keep licensed professional recommendations current.

Fortunately, you don’t have to wait 30 days for your letter when you renew.

ESArecs offers a Money Back Guarantee encompassing a full 100% refund for two reasons:

(1) if you do not qualify for a letter after your consultation or

(2) your landlord does not accept it after filing a complaint with the HUD.

An emotional support animal (ESA) is a pet that helps its owner by providing companionship, helping relieve stress and otherwise comfort its owner just by being present. ESA owners’ rights to keep an ESA in a rented home are protected under the federal Fair Housing Act (FHA). The law requires landlords to allow ESAs even if they have a No Pets rule or limit the types or sizes of pets renters can keep in their homes.

You’ll need a licensed medical professional to diagnose you with a qualifying condition and provide you with a valid ESA Letter to protect those rights. Unlike psychiatric service dogs (PSDs) and other service animals, airlines and businesses are not required to allow you to keep your ESA with you.

ESAs do not have to receive intensive training but should be well-behaved. That is important because, while qualified ESA owners have specific rights when it comes to living with an ESA, bad behavior like constant barking, aggressiveness, or destructive actions are reasons that a landlord or property manager can have your pet removed or make you move out.

A psychiatric service dog (PSD) is a dog trained to perform specific actions to assist someone to deal with the effects and symptoms of a recognized psychiatric disability. To provide that help, PSDs need obedience and situational behavior training. But they also need extensive, individualized training to provide the complicated help individual users require. While ESA owners’ rights are limited to housing under the Fair Housing Act, the use of psychiatric service dogs, like other service animals, is also covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Air Carrier Access Act (ACAA). Those laws protect PSD users from discrimination while traveling on airlines and other commercial travel providers, in housing, and in access to most private businesses and public spaces. As long as their PSD is properly trained and can be reasonably accommodated, Psychiatric Service Dog users are entitled to have their PSD living with them in their home; in an airline's main cabin; and when they go to appointments, public events, and go shopping, out to eat, or on errands to other businesses.

There are many options for training a psychiatric service dog, as long as the dog is a suitable candidate. What works best will depend on your specific abilities and needs.‍

If you have the time, patience, and knowledge, you can train the dog yourself. Many people want expert help from a training school or private trainer, to train their dog and to learn how to work with them effectively at the same time. You can also get a dog that is already properly trained by professional trainers and learn to work with them, but it can take time to find a dog that is properly trained to help with your specific needs.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities. Under the ADA, State and local governments, businesses, and nonprofit organizations that serve the public generally must allow service animals to accompany people with disabilities in all areas of the facility where the public is allowed to go.

Psychiatric Service Animals are accepted on all airlines, provided your animal meets the two standards below:

1) Your dog must behave well in public.

2) Your dog is trained in a task that relieves a symptom of your mental health disability.

The Department of Transportation allows you to train the animal yourself and there is no official test to determine whether an animal meets those standards of training - just good judgement.